WW18 in Dmitrov

Venue and dates for event in Russia known

The Russian U18 women’s national team celebrates its bronze medal win after beating Sweden for third place in the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship. Photo: Steve Kingsman / HHOF-IIHF Images

ZURICH – The 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship will take place in Dmitrov in the Moscow Region.

The 2017 IIHF Annual Congress in May assigned the event to Russia and now the venue and dates have become known. The eight-team event will take place 6-13 January 2018 in Dmitrov pending formal approval by the 2017 IIHF Semi-Annual Congress in late September.

The city of 67,000 inhabitants in the Moscow Region is about 80 kilometres north from downtown Moscow and 54 kilometres away from Moscow’s busiest airport Sheremetyevo.

Dmitrov is one of the centres of women’s hockey in the country. The local club Tornado Moscow Region won four European Women’s Champions Cups and nine national championships. Earlier this year it won its third consecutive title.

The Sport Complex Dmitrov opened in 2003 and includes a 2,500-seat ice rink, a second ice rink, a complex for figure skating and curling, an Olympic swimming pool and other sporting facilities.

The arena hosted European Women’s Champions Cup events and Four Nations tournaments before as well as the 2011 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship Division I where Russia earned promotion back to the top division. The U18 women’s national team has stayed there ever since and won bronze medals in 2015 and 2017.

Like recently the event will be played with two tiered groups. Team USA, Canada, Russia and Sweden will play in the “upper” Group A where the top-two teams will earn a bye to the semi-finals while the other two teams will play a quarter-final game against the best two teams from Group B (A3-B2, A4-B1), which includes Finland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Germany.